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Please join Dr. Jackie Huggins AM for the official launch of A White Hot Flame, a biography of Mary Montgomery Bennett (1881–1961) written by historian Sue Taffe.

Happening at ACMI on Thursday March 1, this event will also feature the debut screening of Letters Across the Desert, a Victorian Women's Trust documentary film by Stu Mannion that captures the powerful advocacy partnership between Mary Bennett and Shirley Andrews.

Mary Montgomerie Bennett is an important but under-recognised figure in Australian history.A member of a successful squatting family, she became a voice for reform at a time when Aboriginal Australians had their citizens’ rights curtailed by repressive state laws.

From her late forties until her death she fought for justice on behalf of the first Australians. She was a teacher, a writer and an advocate. She vehemently opposed the separating, on racial grounds, of Aboriginal children from their families. She put the case, decades before campaigns began, for Aboriginal rights to traditional lands. And she argued for citizenship rights, including equal pay and access to old age pensions for Aboriginal people. A friend described her as ‘a white hot flame’, relentless in pursuit of a better world for the people she loved.

This first comprehensive biography seeks the sources of Mary’s inspiring energy, maintained throughout her life, in her family background and early life experiences.

Dr. Jackie Huggins AM is an Indigenous Australian author, historian and Aboriginal rights activist of the Bidjara Central Queensland and Birri-Gubba Juru North Queensland peoples. She is the Deputy Director of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit, an Adjunct Professor in the School of Social Work and Human Services at the University of Queensland and a Spokesperson for Recognise.

About the author:

Sue Taffe is a Melbourne historian who has written about the contributions of twentieth century activists to campaigns for Aboriginal rights. She is the author of Black and White Together FCAATSI: the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, as well as articles and book chapters about these activists.